Marshmallows
are sweet, spongy desserts. In Bolivia we have something very similar,
so these marshmallows bring a lot of childhood memories. It was sold at
the bus terminal next to a bunch of other amazing treats. Sometimes my
dad would get me one before our trip, but it was always hard to choose
between a marshmallow and a cookie filled with marshmallow and covered
in coconut.. mmm.. so delicious.Marshmallows are so easy to make,
and easy to make them in different flavors. Just add different extracts
or use fruit juice instead of water. A few years ago while visiting my
mom in Bolivia, we used passion fruit juice and they turned out amazing!
Cover them in some chocolate or coconut, or add some sprinkles.A lot of
recipes use icing sugar to roll the marshmallows after you cut them.
But because is so humid in Paraguay that doesn´t work. I´ve been adding
some starch with the icing sugar and they last a little bit longer.
Serve marshmallows as a dessert or add them to some hot chocolate, mmm…
see how the marshmallow melts? Delicious!

Before we start making the marshmallows, measure all the ingredients. Prepare a baking pan; grease the bottom of an 8x8x2.25 in. pan and place a piece of parchment paper, grease that and the sides of the pan. Using a sieve, sprinkle some starch over the pan. You´ll be using a spatula too, grease it well. Greasing the spatula and the baking pan helps with the sticky marshmallow.

1. To a mixing bowl add the gelatin and 8 tablespoons of water. Let it bloom while you make a simple syrup. For the syrup, mix sugar and 1/2 cup of water in a small pan. Bring to boil and cook until sugar has dissolved. Add the vanilla extract.

2. Add the syrup to the gelatin and start beating. It takes about 15 minutes. After the first 5 minutes you´ll notice that it´s thicker and your machine is working a little bit harder. After 15 minutes turn it off and using the greased spatula spread the marshmallow into the prepared pan. Let it set for half an hour before cutting.

3. Lift onto a board. Sprinkle some icing sugar-starch mix over the marshmallow and start cutting. After each slice, sprinkle some icing sugar mixture over the knife to avoid stickiness. After cutting all the marshmallow, roll each square in the icing sugar mixture and store in an air-tight container.